Did anyone catch that episode of The Cosby Show last night on Nick at Night? It was the one where Cliff Huxtable drugs a woman with a Jell-O pudding pop and sexually assaults her. You missed it? Oh right, because nobody is airing Bill Cosby material anymore, and that episode I just made up is exactly why. Sounds like cancel culture.
However, I don’t recall anyone clutching their pearls when they pulled the plug on ol’ Bill. Likely because the term “cancel culture” had not yet become popularized. Had it entered the mainstream lexicon, I can promise there’d be voices of outrage over Cosby’s public exile.
But we can probably all agree that Jell-O, NBC, and everyone else has rightfully blacklisted Bill Cosby for good. But where do we draw the line at “cancelling” someone or something? And what exactly does cancel culture even mean?
It’s unclear whether the phrase was coined by the left or the right — it really doesn’t matter, as its presumed existence is universally unwelcome. Nearly everyone seems to speak out about cancel culture being a pox on modern society. However, our sensibilities about what the term actually applies to seem to vary, as always, based on our political position.
Conservatives define cancel culture as a liberal (over)reaction that alters something they suddenly deem offensive in our evolving ecosystem. Liberals define it as right wingers’ outrage over anything that doesn’t fit their political agenda to the point of boycotting a Starbucks cup at Christmas.
The difference? There are many. But the vast majority of liberals do not belong to a hive mind screaming to get rid of Dr. Seuss books — most of them have almost no opinion on the matter. While a major slice of the right wing is ready and willing to boycott Nike for sponsoring an athlete who started a movement with which they disagree. I guess Coke is also now unacceptable.
(Some may argue here that boycotting is not the same as cancelling. But yes…yes, it is. It’s just unsuccessful cancelling. Obviously the intent of these boycotts is to get something “cancelled.” They just failed to do so.)
I honestly do not want to pick on anyone, but it’s another tired tale of the conservative blame game. From the media to the people to the politicians, they’re overly impassioned and screaming in unison over something. As liberals en masse remain indifferent to casual evolutions that don’t really impact them. And the GOP just continues to misunderstand this key difference.
You hear crickets from the public left, while conservatives act like some petition was passed around and signed by every liberal in America, and now they’re all cheersing champagne about bending the world to their PC will. But it’s common knowledge now that Hasbro alone made the decision to drop the “Mr.” from Mr. Potato Head. It was the Dr. Seuss family and publisher who decided to discontinue six books that no conservative cared about until an hour ago. They were not “pressured” by mainstream liberal America, no matter what your drunk uncle said. Find one person who publicly demanded this, and I’ll wait.
As for things like Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben, there actually is a bit of a sordid history behind these logo portrayals. So liberals said, “okay, I see why the company is protecting its own image.” But this is unacceptable to the modern right — how dare they change the labels on their syrup and rice!
Are people really that upset over losing Aunt Jemima? Why??? As far as I can tell, conservatives just really love being outraged over anything these days. No Democrat in your day-to-day existence is out there screaming over syrup. And these were company decisions, not pressured demands from the faceless left.
Liberals again become the strawman for conservative ire and thunder. How ironic that the right wingers are the ones who throw around the moniker of “snowflake.” It’s not that the left has never shown outrage or tried to cancel something — they have! And that’s the point. It’s that everyone does this thin-skinned bullshit now. Everyone is so damn entitled and colorblind that they don’t even realize that nobody has tolerance on either side of the asshole aisle.
So let’s stop talking about cancel culture. You are cancel culture. I am probably cancel culture, too. We all throw tomatoes at some things, and our status quo will perpetually change to reflect an organic society. One particular political movement isn’t altering anything — but overall progress is. And if that bothers you, it likely isn’t because of the change itself. It’s because you just can’t wait to be pissed off at somebody on the other side of your favorite news outlet and Facebook friends.
It’s time to think more about things you care about — and think less about things you care less about. Go read a book, play a video game, or cure cancer. That’s what I’m doing — I’m so good at Super Mario 3D World. Ranting about cancel culture is just another form of cancel culture, and personally? I’m exhausted by even typing those two words right now.
Now where can I find a Jell-O Pudding Pop these days?